A Perspective on Art

When I sit on the couch in my living room I can gaze out triple windows into the backyard and watch the birds flitting between the tree and the several feeders, one on the window itself.
Or, I can gaze at the fairly large oil (acrylic) painting on the wall, to the left of those windows. Either view gives me great pleasure.

The painting, done in bold shades of purple and magenta and blues, is signed across nearly the bottom fourth of the picture with rather large letters - “ETHAN”.

Gazing at the painting gives me double pleasure because it was not only done by Ethan himself, but he was assisted and guided by his Aunt Deb, an artist in her own right. It was our Christmas gift and will forever be greatly treasured.

We frequently have guests in our home and no one, NO ONE, has ever commented on the skill, the choice of colors, the rendering of the subject matter (it is, in fact, rather abstract) or anything else about the painting, not even the large signature. I suppose this would leave me to believe that this painting may never win any awards. In fact, it reinforces the age old idea that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. To me, the painting is beautiful.


But so is the quilt that hangs on the opposite wall. It depicts in fabric our goldfish pond with the fish swimming in the water. It was also a gift, this one from our daughter Deb.

But I also like to frequently look at the collage of photographs artfully enhanced by several hours in PhotoShop by my husband Bill. And I thoroughly enjoy our coffee table which is made from recycled barn wood. And…

Our home, after 45 years of marriage, is filled with “art” from friends, family, and purchased from artists across the country on our travels. I supposed the whole collection might not even be “worth” $1000.00, but to me it is priceless.

Recently Bill and I drove about 20 miles to have coffee at the Sweet Spot, and so we could see the Visionary Artists Group Spring Exhibit and our friend Barb’s work.

As soon as we had placed our order for lattes we headed to the adjoining room where there is a fireplace with a mantle. On the mantle sits a pitcher with an arrangement of sunflowers and decorative twigs and pods.

Above the mantle is an arrangement of 5 paintings. One is quite large, one is rather small, three are medium sized. Each is a rendering of the flower arrangement on the mantle. They are in different media, from oil or acrylic to watercolor and one that looks like a line drawing with just a hint of color. Each rendering is unique. In one the pitcher is quite blue, in another it is stark white. In several the sunflowers are bursting with color but no two color choices are exactly the same.

Bill and I gazed at the 5 renderings and each thought about which one we liked best. If we had been bold enough we could have polled everyone in the coffee shop that day and probably gotten a different answer from each person on which rendering they liked best and why.

After sipping our lattes for a few minutes we moved to another wall and gazed at another grouping of 5 paintings, this time of a couple sitting in the window of the Sweet Spot, cups on the table in front of them, a newspaper spread out between them. Once again the renderings were each different. Their sizes were different, the colors were different, and, most interesting to me, was how the depiction of the light pole outside the window varied from painting to painting. In one it was absent entirely. In another it was quite prominent, not overpowering, but definitely there. In another it was almost lost in a mist outside the window.

We then looked at another grouping each called “Sweet Spot at Night”. Here the contrast in styles and moods was most apparent. In one picture, the building was shrouded in dark with sewn on buttons, perhaps to represent spots of light. In another the building was lit up from within and in a different rendering the exterior was bathed in light as at sunset.

We carried our lattes around the room and studied other works of these five artists along with several other conributors. No doubt an expert could have looked at the various works of art and identified the artist without even looking at the cards on the wall.

I am sure everyone entering that room fairly quickly decides what they like and what does not appeal to them. Some bold people might even declare which paintings are “good” and which are “bad” and then tell the rest of us why.

I know what I like and that is what I attempt to surround myself with. I really don’t care if the art in question meets an expert’s requirements. I enjoy art (and crafts) because of the way each item resonates with some inner part of me.

Over the years my appreciation of various styles has grown, has changed, has (I like to think) matured. One thing has strongly impacted my “values” for art and that is getting to know the artist and the “story” behind their art. A painting, a quilt, a garden, a culinary dish takes on a whole new perspective when you understand the artist and some of what shaped the creative process. I have grown in my appreciation of art and as a result my life has become richer.

As I looked at Barb’s painting and then the other paintings grouped with hers, each so different from the others, it struck me that this is a small picture (no pun intended) of how we view God. Each of us see Him slightly differently from the person standing right next to us. Different aspects of God appeal to us more than others because of where we might be at in life. And our perspective changes over time. Hopefully we see Him more clearly as we mature, as we grow in our understanding of not only Him, but of ourselves and as we experience the creative process within us.

And none of us, NONE of us, can say “your perspective is wrong, you need to see this my way”. Perhaps, perhaps, we can say, “Here is another perspective and this is why it is important to me”. If we do that, we also must listen to the other person’s viewpoint and, more importantly, why. I have no doubt that when we do that we grow When we share with otherswho God is to us, with one another, we have the opportunity to all enlarge our perspective, our understanding of who He is and who we are. And our life becomes richer.

Now, if only that flower on the left was a little more…..

Can We be Raccoons?

“Grandma, can we be raccoons?” Ethan asked, as we headed down the stairs to the finished part of the basement. That’s where we store the toys and other treasures that five-year-old boys seem to enjoy.

“Sure.” I answered, knowing what this would involve, or at least what it had involved during many other visits.

Ethan flipped off the light switch at the bottom or the stairs informing me that we needed to save the environment by turning off all lights that we were not using. “Ah,” I thought to myself, “I know what he has been learning in school this past week.” The basement was plunged into a gloomy darkness, perfect for our game of Raccoons.

We half stooped and ran around the basement gathering up “food” for our “nest” in our “cave” and soon the futon was covered with his artificial fruit, blocks of wood that had turned into other kinds of food, and all sorts of other toys that were now imaginary food for raccoons. Fortunately raccoons have quite a varied diet.

We also spent part of our time “killing” things to add to our diet. I was told that we had become evil raccoons and so we killed things for our food.

I debated then about squashing this boy’s vivid imagination and wondered how his mother would feel about this more aggressive behavior. Well, I was pretty sure I knew how she would feel. We raised two girls so I am not always certain how to respond to this grandson’s more obviously boy behavior. My own opinion is that boys need to release some of that aggression while being taught the correct ways to channel it into productive activity, but I wasn’t quite sure how Becki (and John) felt.

Eventually the grandmother raccoon was tired from all that food hunting and she was allowed to rest in one of the raccoon chairs. We have a very nicely furnished cave! The other raccoon continued to run around the cave and down the hallway into the grandfather raccoon’s room doing raccoony things.

All of a sudden the small raccoon collapsed onto the floor near the foot of the chair where (I) the older raccoon was still resting.

“What’s wrong, Ethan?” I asked, with a bit of concern.

“I am dead.” he announced.

“You be dead, too, Grandma.” So I eased my raccoony body (I don’t just collapse anymore) onto the floor and we lay there “dead”. I wondered in my grandmother raccoon head what was going on now. We had never died before.

Before I could even inquire Ethan sprung up from the floor, did some raccoony stretching and announced, with great joy, “we are alive again, we have been resurrected!”

I sprang up also (well, o.k. I eased myself up off the floor) and we ran around the basement joyously.

“Now we are good raccoons!” Ethan announced. “We don’t kill things anymore!”

“How come?”, I asked.

“Because, we are resurrected!” Ethan looked at me as though I should have known that. “When we are resurrected we can only be good raccoons.”

We continued to hunt for food. Actually we put all the “food” away so we could hunt for it all over again, but this time we only collected fruits and vegetables, and only ones that are good for us, because we were resurrected raccoons.

This all took place the week before Easter and reflected what Ethan had been learning in Sunday School (where Becki is one of his teachers) and from conversations at home.

Later, as I was telling the Grandfather raccoon about our play in “the cave” I could hardly keep the tears from flowing. A prayer went up from my heart that Ethan will continue to find great joy and excitement about the resurrection and a growing understanding of what that means for us.

He may not have all the concepts quite right, but we are now “good” because of Christ’s resurrection – his victory over death, the price for our sins. Like this little “raccoon” we should all be running around with great joy and jubilation hunting for the treasures hidden in life around us by our resurrected king.